Episode 2

At the last instant, the dive bombing edimmu slams into Kray's body shield as he brings it up high, bashing the writhing tentacles of another away from his neck with his sword hand as he does so.

A horde of edimmu swoop and dive, chains furiously alive around all of them. A veritable maelstrom of death and butchery.

Kray can almost feel the Fates, sharp knives at the ready to cut...

They are all truly at the edge of Hel, The Pit beckoning them to a fate worse than death.

Edimmu attack misses Kray. Dice for Acrobatics vs grapple DC 7, disadvantage.

After Thorn crashed into him, Kray saw it happening now. So obvious, now... in the moment. What he should have seen coming, before they entered the room. The chains, and their devastation, chaos incarnate. He didn't consider so many enemies...

A voracious vortex of flying demons and possessed chains, all intent on their death, or feeding whatever resides in the Hels of The Pit.

Carnage and butchery... they were swimming in it now. It was no longer a question if tactics, really, but survival. Had lust for riches gotten the better of him? Or was it some useless component of being human, inspiring him to help The Cursed?

Then he saw them... apparitions, ghastly and twisted in their likeness. Laughing at him. Calling to him. Ivor, gaunt, riddled with stirge holes, oozing blood from head to toe. Talius, water seeping out of his mouth, skin sloughing off as if he had been spent an eternity in the lake at the Borgh Riac. Qiu, horrendous bite wounds from those alligators there, limbs dangling and mangled as he crawled towards Kray across the floor in his periphery.

Dread seized Kray for just a moment. The dead had come to claim him, spiteful hate and vengeance their fuel. Nightmares like this had haunted him from the moment he had been responsible for the lives of other men.

Then he snapped to the present.

Hallucinations.

We need to fall back, at the very least to a better position.

He knew, without a doubt, the one choice was the right one. Holding this position would be akin to asking the Fates to put away their blades. And the Fates were cold, merciless.

He almost choked on the words as they came out. Words so rarely uttered in all of his years, on so many battlefields, scales varying in size from skirmishes to full scale battles in times of war.

He roared the words as they burned out from deep within, sounding above the din of battle, searing his pride. But here, in the most harrowing of moments... pride needed to be cast aside like a piss bucket from a slum window. "Fall back! To the tunnel! FALL BACK!"

Gentleman:

Shit was hard on the way in. And the dice have been unkind, to be sure. It's dire now. Best move, unless something like a unicorn happens... we fall back to inside the passage entrance, Kray in front, high AC to soak and tank. If we can somehow tether him with rope to an anchor man... Thorn, Maeriks (bull!)... hell both holding Kray from being pulled off to Hel.

Ranged guys supporting as needed... but this all assumes we can get everyone out. Force the fliers to meet us at a choke point, head on, not from above, which will put us out of chain reach as well.

We buy time, for Bryn and Elam to help make some shit happen, whatever that is. And this all assumes we can get rolls to free guys from chains. We can't hold this position, unless were forced to. Then it's a RNGesus thing. We need distance from the pit and time for Bryn and Elan to do some shit.

I can't believe I didn't plan this from the get go, fellas. Seems so obvious now.

In sum, if you can get free, fall back and tighten it up at the passage entrance. Help someone get free along the way.

Ox, if you can bring this chain madness to an end, it needs to happen soon.

Ryhim's feet are unsteady from the unnatural already. The irons wrap around him and drag him away. His mind panics Alone...and vulnerable.

One of the edimmu's rips into Ryhim, knocking him out of the panic-induced trance. He holds the kukri out, forcing the second charging one to sway in it's path.

Kray's call for retreat breaks through and he turns to see the rest also surrounded by the flying heads, facing off with the irons as well. He pulls away from the irons but they hold him firm, it is useless to try. His eyes scan the room, a quick thought, he takes a deep breath, strikes at one of the edimmu attacking him.

Suter-set's voice calls out again